California WaterBlog is a long-running outreach project from the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, a research center dedicated to interdisciplinary study of water challenges, particularly in California. We focus on environmentally and economically sustainable solutions for managing rivers, lakes, groundwater, and estuaries. This week, for UC Davis Give Day (April 19-20) we’re sharing a little about the Center and the work we do. I’m Karrigan Bork, the Center’s Interim Director, helping out while Director Andrew Rypel is on sabbatical, and I’ll be your guide for this brief tour through the “Shed”. If you would like to donate to help the Center continue important work, I’ve shared our giving link below.
The Center for Watershed Sciences has always been about moving beyond single-issue and single-species approaches to water management. Geologist Jeffrey Mount and fish biologist Peter Moyle founded the Center in 1998, and it really got going with the addition of agricultural economist Richard Howitt, civil and environmental engineer Jay Lund, and hydrologist Thomas Harter. We remain a place where biologists, geologists, hydrologists, engineers, economists, legal scholars and others work together to help understand and solve California’s complex water problems.
Today, the Center is home to a team of Professional Researchers who pursue projects to fund their own labs at the Shed, employing teams of students, post docs, and specialists to conduct a wide array impactful research. We also offer physical, intellectual, and institutional space for faculty in various departments across campus who are pursuing interdisciplinary work within UC Davis, across the UC system, and with other research organizations around the world. The Center’s work is designed to be problem-focused and immediately relevant, pointing to better ways to manage water, species, and habitat in California and beyond. Our research is nonpartisan and focused on good science, not easy answers.
PC Mette Lampcov / The Guardian
The Center is a productive place; in 2022-2023, Center-affiliated research produced almost 60 publications, mostly in peer reviewed journals, but also in books and law reviews. We’ve pioneered groundbreaking work on salmonid floodplain use, thiamine deficiency as a major cause of Central Valley salmon mortality, minimum flow protections, process-based meadow restoration techniques, and tracking salmon habitat use through isotopes in their otoliths and eyeballs. We also conduct a monthly sampling program for fish and invertebrates that has been going on for more than three decades! It’s really incredible research that informs management decisions.
I’d like to highlight just a few areas of ongoing work at the Center:
- The Delta and estuarine ecology.
- Central Valley floodplain salmon habitat science through the Nigiri Project and related work.
- Watershed restoration in places like the Scott River, Little Shasta River, and Childs Meadow.
- Building science to protect water for fish through the California Environmental Flows Framework.
- Climate change, especially heat, fire, carbon sinks, and resilience.
- Nitrate in California’s drinking water.
- Work with tribal partners to utilize traditional ecological knowledge and restore native species.
See also our research webpage.
The Center is very active in education and outreach, through UC Davis classes like Ecogeomorphology and engagement with high school, junior high, and elementary schools like salmon in the classroom as well as our work to bring environmental education into underserved schools. Our DEI committee works to help us live our philosophy of “providing a welcoming and supportive environment for all people.”
We receive funding from a diverse portfolio of sources, including foundations, public agencies, and conservation groups. Most work is funded by grants for particular projects, which helps the Center to do really interesting and significant work, but which generally doesn’t fund some basic and more innovative and pioneering needs. It can also be difficult to fund research and engagement travel for graduate students, vital for developing engaged scientists. Funding educational opportunities like our famous Ecogeomorphology class is always a challenge, especially for students of limited financial means.
Water and environmental innovation in California requires gifts from individuals and foundations, beyond more staid and traditional agency-funded research. Some of our biggest historic contributions to California water and ecosystem management have come from such funding, seeding new ideas and extending applications from other work. If you’re excited about the Center’s work, getting students and academics engaged in California’s water and environmental problems, and if you enjoy this blog, we hope you’ll donate in support of our mission. The link below allows donations directly to the Center for Watershed Sciences.
Please give and encourage others to give!